


Abide

by sevenfists



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Originally Posted on LiveJournal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-05-31
Updated: 2006-05-31
Packaged: 2018-10-24 10:03:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,918
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10739454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sevenfists/pseuds/sevenfists
Summary: Sam buries his brother on a Thursday.





	Abide

Sam buries his brother on a Thursday.

He does it himself, in the woods behind an old warehouse. There will be no morgue for Dean, no funeral home, no dignified graveside service. As far as the world's concerned, Dean Winchester died in St. Louis. Sam's the only one left to notice his absence. Their father's dead, has been for years, and most of his friends along with him, those gruff men who helped raise Sam and Dean, or tried to. It's just Sam, now, alone in remembering that Dean existed, meant something.

It's a lonely kind of grief. Sam hasn't been alone in a long time.

He covers the grave with branches and dry leaves. He isn't sure what he'll do, now. He feels too old to go back to school. He won't be able to get a real job, not with a decade-wide hole in his resume. Without Dean, he's loose, adrift. Untethered. There's no room for him in this new life, this place he's come to without Dean.

He stands there for a long time, looking at the darker earth he turned up and dispersed. Birds make erratic movements in the trees, building nests. There's a newspaper clipping in Sam's pocket, the last one Dean found before. Before. Some haunting in Mississippi.

Sam walks back to the car. It's April. He's thirty-one years old.

***

Four days ago, they were in Georgia. Dean found the article over breakfast: mysterious deaths in a small town in North Carolina.

Sam didn't want to go. "It sounds like the local authorities are all over it, Dean. We don't want to get tangled up with that. Remember what happened in Denver?"

"Yeah, yeah," Dean grumbled. "I still say that was your fault."

Sam rolled his eyes. "It definitely wasn't, but I'm willing to let you hold on to your delusions."

" _You're_ the only one with delusions, psychic wonder," Dean said, and reached for the salt.

"What are we, _twelve_?" Sam asked. "Jesus, Dean. Eat your eggs."

Dean just raised an eyebrow at him.

They went to North Carolina. Sam mostly went along with what Dean wanted to do. It was easier that way, and it made Dean happy. They were good at what they did, worked well together. Dean picked the hunts, did the research, and Sam relied on his visions to steer them away from the ones that would get them into more trouble than they could handle.

He didn't see this one coming, though. The thing that was killing off the locals was something they had never encountered before. It wasn't in Dad's journal. They didn't know what the hell it was.

"I don't like it," Dean said, grim and weary after a day spent digging through every source of information they had. His hair was starting to go gray at the temples, a few strands here and there. He was young still.

"Yeah," Sam said. "Me either." He bumped Dean's shoulder with his own. "C'mon, I'll buy you a pizza."

"It's _my_ credit card," Dean pointed out.

"Actually, it's Bartholomew Parker's," Sam said, and grabbed his keys.

They found the thing on Wednesday – the thing whose name they didn't know, couldn't find. They weren't even looking for it; they were wandering around in the woods, searching for the body of the latest victim.

Something crashed in the undergrowth. Sam turned, raised his shotgun. It happened quickly. Dean was still crouching on the ground, facing away from the thing, whatever it was, something shaggy and monstrous. He leaned forward to grab for his shotgun, and the thing smashed its huge paw into his head.

The sound of Dean's neck snapping and the sound of Sam's gun firing came almost simultaneously. Sam's bullet was a moment too late. If he had been faster – if he had been paying more attention – well, it's too late now. Sam knows that. Guilt is excessive, self-indulgent. It won't bring Dean back.

He feels guilty anyway, a sharp pain in his chest like heartburn.

He went back to the motel that night and stared at himself in the bathroom mirror. He didn't look any different. Like most earth-shattering events, Dean's death failed to leave a visible mark.

"Life's a bitch and then you die," Dean liked to say, grinning around a toothpick or a lollipop stick. It was just a catchphrase, not something he honestly meant. They both knew their lives would probably be short, but neither of them _knew_ it, not really. Sam didn't feel it in his gut until he saw Dean lying there in the dirt, hand flung out, fingers pointing southeast.

Dean didn't see it coming. Sam's grateful for that, at least.

***

Three months ago, they were in Wyoming, and Sam came down with the flu.

"Couldn't you wait a few days to get sick?" Dean asked, irritated and concerned.

Sam vomited again. "No," he said.

They holed up. Dean brought him soup, Benadryl, bottles of ginger ale. Sam slept, most of the time, buried under the synthetic comforter and a stack of blankets from the car. When he was awake, he watched the Olympics. Dean liked the figure skating.

On the fourth evening, feverish and more than a little high from cheap over-the-counter medicine, Sam said, "Tell me a story."

"You aren't five anymore, Sam, we're not gonna have story-time." Dean twisted off the top of his beer bottle, tossed it into the trash can. Sam's eyes followed the flashing arc of metal as it spun through the air.

"I want a story," he said.

"You've gotta be fucking kidding me," Dean said. "Fine. Once there was a princess named Sammy. She was very demanding and drove her long-suffering brother up the wall. Then one day she was eaten by a dragon and the kingdom reveled in the goddamn peace and quiet." He turned off the television and got up, wandered out of Sam's line of sight.

"What happens next?" Sam asked, drowsy, falling down into sleep.

"I don't know," Dean said from the bathroom. Sam heard the tap turn on, the light switch click. Then nothing.

***

Two years ago, they were in Indiana, looking for a demon that was stealing little boys out of their bedrooms and returning their skins, fragile and translucent, a day later.

"That's one sick motherfucker," Dean said, shoving another knife into his bag. Sam loaded another magazine into his gun.

It took them two days to track the thing down. They caught in the early hours of the morning as it climbed the exterior wall of its next victim's house. Dean shouted, ran, fired his shotgun. They dragged the corpse down to the river and burned it under a bridge, its shriveled limbs collapsing into ash on the coarse gravel bank. It was an easy kill.

There were five little boys dead in that town alone.

Sam went to bed early the next night, afraid of the dreams he would have but too tired to stay awake any longer. Dean went out somewhere; Sam didn't ask.

He woke up in the middle of the night sometime when he felt the mattress shift and bend beneath him. Before he could move, there was a hand on his wrist and another flat on his chest, hot and solid. Adrenaline exploded in his body, raced through his veins, tasted urgent and metallic in the back of his mouth.

"It's me," Dean whispered, breath hot against Sam's ear. "It's okay."

The tension drained out of Sam's limbs. "Dean, what? Why are you in my bed?" He tried to sit up, turn on the lamp or something, but Dean held him down.

"Shh," Dean said. He smelled like alcohol. His nose bumped the skin behind Sam's ear, scenting out the pulse. When he kissed Sam, he tasted like whiskey and cigarette smoke and limes. He was sloppy drunk, licking wetly at Sam's mouth, biting at his chin.

"Dean," Sam said again, trying to twist away. It wasn't like this between them. Never had been.

"Hey," Dean said, and reached down, hand curving over Sam's hip, pressing into his crotch. Sam couldn't stop himself: he was hard, he bucked up against the palm of Dean's hand.

He could feel Dean's mouth curve into a smile against his neck. "Yeah," Dean said. He pulled his hand away, slid it down into Sam's boxers, and it was good, oh Christ, it was so good. Sam bit his lip and let Dean jerk him off, his callused fingers tugging rough and just right.

"Come on, come on," Dean said, and kissed Sam again, smoky and wet. Sam shuddered all over and spilled into Dean's fist.

Dean sat back, wiping his hand on the sheets. He still had his jacket on, his boots, all his clothes. When Sam reached for Dean's belt buckle, Dean shoved his hands away.

"Dean, what? I just – "

"Don't," Dean said, and Sam didn't. Dean rolled off the bed and went into the bathroom.

They didn't talk about it again.

***

Three years ago, they were in Wisconsin.

Four years ago, they were in New York City, tromping around the city in search of a giant, man-eating alligator.

"It's like a comic book," Dean said, thrilled to bits and not hiding it very well. "Mutant creature of the sewers devours New York!"

"Uh-huh," Sam said.

Five years ago, they were in Nevada.

Six years ago, they were in Alabama, and Sam was laid up with a broken leg. Dean went out alone to track down a werewolf. Sam fretted for the entirety of each of the three days that Dean was gone.

Dean came back the evening of the third day, unhurt, pleased with himself.

"What, you thought I couldn't do it alone?" Dean asked, scowling, slinging his duffel bag onto the floor next to his bed.

"No," Sam said. "Winchesters worry werewolves, remember?" A childhood motto, invented by Dean after their father left them with Pastor Jim for one entire week while he hunted down a pack of werewolves on the Upper Peninsula.

"Damn right we do," Dean said, his face clearing, one corner of his mouth quirking up into a smile.

There was a time when Sam had been convinced that Dean had all the answers; that he knew what to do in every situation, and would do it. It was strange to feel like that again.

Seven years ago, Sam doesn't remember where they were.

***

Eight and a half years ago, maybe nine, they were in Texas, killing deranged and possibly vampiric cattle. It took them a week of trudging around under the hot sun, armed with crossbows and enormous hunting knives, but they finally killed the last cow.

Dean was exuberant on their ride back to the motel, bloody and sweat-soaked but still singing along with the radio. "You and me against the world, Sammy," Dean yelled over the music, drumming his hands against the steering wheel, all hopped up on adrenaline or sunstroke.

Sam slumped down in his seat, irritated by Dean's enthusiasm but also amused by it. A sudden surge of affection for his brother took him by surprise. Even though Dean's main goal in life seemed to be to annoy the shit out of Sam, it was kind of nice to have him around. Sam was even getting used to the god-awful music. He turned his face toward the window to hide his smile.

"You and me," he murmured, and felt the certainty of it settle deep into him, a steady and anchoring weight.  



End file.
